Avoid logical fallacies in your argument, for example:

• ad hominem.  A personal attack that targets the actual person who holds an opinion rather than the opinion itself; e.g., "I won't vote for any politician that Rush Limbaugh supports."

• Begging the question.  Asks the audience to simply accept a statement as the truth when in actuality it is controversial; e.g., "All pornography is protected by the U.S. Constitution."

• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.  Assumes a cause-and-consequence relationship just because one event happened after another; e.g., if you argue that SDSU had a winning football season because of its new coach might be overlooking the fact that some were upper-classmen who had been trained by the old coach.

• Non sequitur.  It does not always follow; e.g., "The United States lost the war in Vietnam, so we shouldn't intervene elsewhere."

• Sweeping generalizations.  Overstatements that oftentimes result when one has not thought through an issue or action; e.g., "Welfare recipients don't want to work."

• False dichotomy.  Imagining only and no more than two sides or solutions to an issue, when issues might be more complicated in terms of their causes and possible solutions.